Seven new plays in Cardboard Citizens’ commissioning spree

A theatre company that works with homeless people will commission seven new plays as part of a £300,000 project exploring the current housing crisis.

Cardboard Citizens, which works primarily with people who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, is to stage the plays in London next year. Each work will explore a historical housing problem from the past 150 years in the context of the current situation.

Though a venue is not yet confirmed, the plan is to stage three works per night over a six-week period.

Heathcote Williams and David Watson are confirmed to write two of the seven plays for the Home Truths project, with the remaining five yet to be commissioned.

At least one commission will take the form of a competition, in order to discover work by new writers.

Cardboard Citizens chief executive Adrian Jackson said he hoped the new plays would inform the debate around housing, and “have conversations in which people across the housing spectrum are involved, from homeless people at one end of the spectrum to developers at the other end.”

In addition to the commissions, Jackson also revealed plans to stage a verbatim production in London based on interviews with every person living on a single street, which will be kept anonymous.

Cardboard Citizens has already been granted funding by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and will seek further financing from other grant-giving bodies and its own fundraising.

Earlier this week the theatre company raised nearly £150,000 towards the Home Truths project at a fundraising gala hosted by Kate Winslet, who serves as an ambassador for the company.

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